She leaned across him. "Can you lift your chest again?"
"Sure." He managed, paying for the effort with twinges from ruined nerve endings. His face ran with cold sweat and he could feel his limbs shaking by the time she finished dressing the wound.
As though she hadn't noticed, Delight went out to the kitchen to dump the dirty water into the drain, and refill the basin with clean. Returning, she set about bathing his face, his arms, his neck. He felt like an infant. A puling infant sent to try her patience. He'd heard some men enjoyed being cosseted by a woman--he wasn't one of them. It was a man's job to take care of his wife, not the other way around.
As though reading his mind, Delight patted his face with a towel worn thin and soft with use, catching a dribble before it could run down and soak his hair and the pillow. "At the end of this week, I'll hold the mirror and you can shave yourself. I have no wish to sort amongst all those whiskers for a set of lips to kiss any longer than necessary."
Her words startled him. She'd never been so outspoken, so bold, with him before. Not in the two years they'd been married. He liked it in her, he decided, but would've liked it more if he hadn't thought it was her way of building him up when she knew he was low. That puling infant comparison again.
Playing to her consideration, Pelham said, "You could shave me yourself if you think it's worth your while."
"Let's see..." Her cool fingers brushed his scratchy whiskers aside. Her warm lips lowered, touching his mouth, soft and shy, all too brief before her head jerked up. She had a care for the difficulty he still had catching his breath, although he'd druther not had her bother. Pel could've gone without air far longer than the kiss lasted.
But then, over the sound of his heartbeat galloping in his ears, he heard what she had picked up before him. Gunshots popped in the street below their window. Three, four. He struggled to rise, even as Delight gripped his shoulders and forced him flat.
"Be still," she said. "Herschel's around. He'll take care of any trouble."
"Mmph." Pelham's wordless grunt spoke volumes.
"Stay still," Delight ordered again.
She scurried over to the half-open window and peered down from the side, not needing his sharp admonition to stay away from in front of the glass. Pelham saw her fingers clench into fists and, when she turned to him, anger snapped in her narrowed eyes.
"Hooligans," she said. "Two of them." The crisp sound of breaking glass carried up to them, the front windows of the sheriff's office apparently the gunman's prime target. Alarm spread across her features. "Pel," she admitted, "Deputy Herschel is drunk, and Mr. Moon is trapped down there. A bullet is apt to go right through the window into the cells."
"Drunk? Why didn't you tell me?" Pel snapped. He had to do something. Get the prisoner out of there before he was shot dead. He tried to swing his feet over the side of the bed, but the sudden motion made his head swirl and his vision fade. Pain ground through his chest.
She glanced at him and her breath caught. "Pel, don't you dare..."
Turning away from the hoopla below, she leapt toward him. At the same time, he heard a double thud of bullets punching through the wall. It was followed a second later by the bedroom window shattering, pointed shards flying every which way. The white curtains billowed. Delight cried out.
"Delight!" Fear soured inside his mouth. Tucker Moon fled his mind. Pelham lunged to his feet, his hands reaching for his wife, only to find he couldn't sustain the effort. In what was becoming something of a habit, he felt his knees dissolving, buckling beneath him as he collapsed onto the floor. His last coherent thought was of Delight crumbling with him. Of the pair of them going down together. Of despair.
* * * *
"Damn it to hell!" Delight's temper flared hot as a forest fire. She cradled Pel's head in her arms, holding his face out of the broken window glass. She took a certain satisfaction in swearing, as though the rough words could scrape clean the mess of anger and pain. "Damn it all to hell," she said for good measure.
Questions ran through her head like that aforementioned forest fire leaping from tree top to tree top. What was going on out there? Why were those ruffians shooting at the sheriff's office? The bullets fired into the apartment seemed deliberate and aimed, not accidental. Was this another attack on Pelham? And most importantly, where was Herschel? Drunk or not, wasn't there anything he could do to stop this harassment? His incompetence maddened her as much as the shooters' attack.
Outside, a swell of men's shouts, a woman's hysterical cry, and at least three different dogs barking their fool heads off kept the uproar at a high level. Then the thud of horses' hooves racing toward the outskirts of town marked the end of the assault. The screaming stopped, dwindling to shouts traveling up and down the street as folks called to one another.
At no time, Delight reflected, did she hear a whisper of Deputy Boomer Herschel out front taking charge. Had he, by wild chance, been shot in the first fusillade of shots? Had Mr. Moon? The silence below disturbed her almost more than the commotion just a minute ago.
She supposed it was up to her to go see.
Wrapping the bottom of her skirt over her bare hand, she swept the floor around Pelham clear of glass, grabbed a pillow from the bed and rested her husband's head on it. He was out like a blown candle, although she didn't see any fresh blood. The pulse in his neck was slow and strong. Still, for the second time she'd have to ask for help getting him back in bed.
Delight was far from being a foolhardy woman. Her father had been a lawman all her life, and between him and her husband, certain of their habits had become ingrained in her thinking. She didn't need Pelham, always mindful of his vow to protect her, to shake a finger over her and give advice now. Leery of ambush, before she set foot out of the bedroom, she grabbed his heavy Colt from the holster hanging over the bedpost. The situation seemed to call for more than her two-shot derringer, which she'd taken to carrying loaded.
Toting the pistol in her hand and leaving the door open behind her, Delight stood on the landing and listened to the leaden silence. Nothing stirred below. Nodding to herself, she eased her way down the steps, taking care to avoid the third riser from the bottom--the one that always squeaked. But she found her concern unnecessary. When she entered the office, it was empty. The floor glittered like a sparkling scab, and dust motes danced in the sunlight pouring through the broken window.
There was no sign of Herschel. No blood, no body, no nothing.
Nevertheless, she kept a firm grip on the revolver. "Deputy Herschel?" she called out. Her voice wasn't as firm as she liked. "Mr. Herschel? Where are you?" There was a storage shed attached to the rear wall. Was he sleeping off a drunken stupor there by any chance? He'd done so more than once since Pel's wounding.
A low chuckle came from the cells, startling her. It came from Tuck Moon, his soft drawl answering her question.
"Seems the deputy had a sudden urge to depart these here premises when the shooting started, ma'am," he said. "Reckon I would've gone myself, had I been in a different situation."
Relief flooded her system, bringing a queer weakness with it. Delight went past the cells and pushed open the door to the enclosed rear yard. There was no sign of Herschel out there, but along the way she saw fresh scars in the woodwork, and one nice, round hole in a door panel. Shutting and barring the door, she then turned to Moon. She found him sitting on the concrete floor of his cell, and despite the dry words and laugh, he appeared shaken as he looked up at her. No more shaken than she. She'd expected to find him dead.
"The shooter gone?" he asked.
"Shooters," Delight corrected. "Two of them. Yes, they're gone. Unless they come back for another try."
"I heard the window shatter upstairs." Tuck picked himself off the floor, unfolding a joint at a time until he rose to his lanky height. "You and the sheriff come through all right? Thought I heard a thud."
"We weren't hit. Sheriff Birdsall tried to stand up and fainted dead away." Her hands closed around
the cold iron bars and gripped hard. "I need your help again," she said. "Please."
Tuck peered at her, the bruise left over from Herschel's attack a few days ago still coloring the skin around his eye. "Ma'am," he said, "my time is up at midnight. If I come out now, I ain't going back in this cell."
Delight didn't see she had any choice, not that it mattered a whit. "Agreed. Your time will be up and you'll be free to go."
"I ain't taking another beating from the deputy neither." His jaw set. "I won't start nothing, but this time, he tries anything fancy with me, I'm fighting back."
"I can understand that," she said. "I won't blame you. Is there anything else?"
A slow smile turned up the corner of Moon's mouth. "No, ma'am. I reckon not."
"Good. We're agreed then." Delight strode to the desk, searching through the disarray Herschel had so quickly made of her neat stack of papers and the tidy desk drawer. She finally found the cell key, not in the desk where it should have been, but thrown beneath the pot-bellied stove, which stood all the way across the room. If she were to make a guess, she would've said Herschel tossed it there on purpose, just to cause her grief. Its retrieval meant getting down on her hands and knees and reaching across the dirty, glass-littered floor.
However, competent after Tuck Moon's instruction the other day, she had no trouble inserting the key, whereupon the tumblers aligned and the lock clicked open. Even then Moon hung back.
"You sure Herschel ain't gonna make trouble over this?" he asked. "Trouble for you?"
Delight snorted and shook her head. Men. She was surrounded by stubborn, bullheaded, disagreeable men. "He's got nothing to say about it," she said. "Besides, it looks like he must've run off."
She was wrong, of course. Or partly, anyway. Because as though it were ordained, the moment Tuck Moon stepped out of his cell, Boomer Herschel slunk sideways in through the front as if afraid to be seen. He looked shame-faced, and at the same time, mean--a lot like a rabid dog that had once approached Delight. She even expected to see him foaming at the mouth as he growled out, "What's going on in here?"
Her father, Delight remembered, had ended up shooting the dog.
Chapter 7
* * *
Tucker Moon placed himself between Mrs. Birdsall and the enraged Herschel, an automatic reaction, even though he figured he was some kind of fool. Here he went again, letting a wayward chivalrous inclination put him on the spot. Serve him right if he ended up spending another week of his life in the Garnet County hoosegow.
It's my bad luck, he thought, that instead of being a bird-boned little thing, the sheriff's wife isn't some strapping Finnish farm girl able to put the roughest customer in his place. One good, hefty swat and old Herschel would run off like a whipped coyote.
Tuck's belly grabbed in anticipation of another set-to with Herschel, but then Mrs. Birdsall stuck a sharp elbow in his ribs, and he was so surprised he staggered aside.
"There you are, Mr. Herschel. Where have you been?" Delight demanded, and although her voice was low and firm, Tuck had a notion the air around her was quivering.
Herschel's bulldog face turned red. "That's my affair, missus. What I wanta know is why this yahoo is out of his cell again. Your doing? Second time, ain't it? Looks like maybe you got so much in common you belong in there with him. Or maybe you been in there with him already."
Delight gasped at the effrontery. Her ears, in front of her pulled back brown hair, looked like they were on fire.
Tuck's hands tightened into fists, but before he could move, Delight said, "That will be quite enough, Mr. Herschel. As of this moment, consider yourself fired. I'll take that badge you're wearing. You don't deserve it."
Herschel threw back his head and guffawed, the sound slowly fading under Delight's stony silence.
"Now," she said, her blue gaze steady.
"Says who?" Herschel blustered. "You can't fire me. You ain't got the authority."
"I am my husband's representative." Delight's shoulders squared. "Sheriff Birdsall has empowered me as his spokesman and as such, you are being dismissed for dereliction of duty and insubordination."
Tuck had never heard so many big words strung together before in his life, but he figured he knew what they meant. What's more, he came close to believing them, even though he'd been told the sheriff lay unconscious on the floor upstairs. He doubted there'd been much time for discussion between Birdsall and his missus. Tuck's admiration for her grew.
"And there's me," he said on a burst of zeal. "I'm gonna make sure what Mrs. Sheriff says happens, happens."
"You? Horse shit," Herschel said. "You ain't got the guts."
The insult passed right over Tuck because the deputy's earlier crudity infuriated him so much he reached out and ripped the badge right off Boomer's shirt. Tore the shirt, too, a big jagged tear. Made Tuck feel good, seeing Herschel's dirty gray union suit sticking out through the hole. Sort of made up for the bruised eye and sore ribs he himself still sported.
His action might've been a mistake, he decided as Herschel, far from lying down and taking this treatment, glared at him with eyes wild as a madman's.
Herschel fumbled for the pistol on his hip, and only the sight of Mrs. Birdsall drawing her husband's big Colt from the folds of her skirt, holding it in both hands, and cocking it with a jerk of her thumb changed his mind. He stared at her like a dumbfounded turkey gobbler.
Not bothering to hide his grin, Tuck showed Mrs. Birdsall the badge before he tossed it onto the desk where it spun and settled.
"Thank you," she told Tuck, then said to Herschel, "I want you out of here, right now. Your wages will be settled up at the end of the month. Be thankful I'm not arresting you for assault and defamation of character."
And that was that--only it wasn't.
Herschel, moving with an intent Tuck could scarcely credit, lashed out with a blow aimed at Delight Birdsall's midsection. 'Course a big, heavy man like him wasn't nearly as fast as a fairy dust woman like her. She jumped aside, and he ended up banging his fist on the pistol in her hand. Unwise, to slap a cocked weapon. Tuck'd found that out the other day when he almost got his leg shot off. Just as it had then, the pistol discharged, whereupon Boomer Herschel put all the might of his powerful voice into squealing like a stuck hog.
As well he might, Tuck thought, shaking his head over such stupidity. The fool was sure enough bleeding like one.
"I'm shot." With bugged out eyes, Herschel put a hand over his side where blood seeped through his soiled calico shirt. "Somebody get the doc."
But far from dying, which a feller might've imagined considering the noise he was making, it was just a scratch. Mighta stung, though. Tuck hoped it did. He snorted. "Quit your blubbering, Herschel," he said. "Shoot, I've knicked myself worse than that on barbed wire."
Delight stood with the Colt dangling at her side. Her expression shifted from shock to dismay and then disgust. "Tcha." A frown lined her forehead. "Now look what you've done."
A tap at the office door interrupted Herschel's hot denial of wrongdoing, which, to Tuck's amusement, Mrs. Sheriff ignored. Tuck stepped over and opened the door, although why he bothered was anybody's guess. The place was shot full of enough holes it was like an open sieve. The mayor, after a first wary glance, walked in. His feet crunched in the broken glass.
"Did I hear a shot just now?" he asked. "Is everybody all right? There've been so many bullets flying around, I was afraid all you folks might be dead." An apron wrapped his portly belly in blood-splotched white canvas, a sign he'd come directly from his butcher shop. Eyebrows as thick and heavy as earthworms wiggled up and down as he took in the damage. "Herschel, what happened? How bad are you hurt?"
Herschel hesitated, his eyes shifting from Mrs. Birdsall to the mayor.
Compressing lips that wanted to lift in a smile, Tuck cocked an eyebrow at Herschel. "Why don't you tell the mayor how you came to be wounded? He ought to appreciate the story."
Thaddeus Green, the recently
elected mayor of Endurance, frowned at Tuck. "Who the dickens are you? Aren't you the feller Pel hauled in a week or so ago for drunk and disorderly?"
"That's me," Tuck admitted, not at all proud of this addition to his reputation.
"Mind telling what you're doing here?"
"My times up," Tuck said before Mrs. Sheriff was obliged to make excuses. Ole Herschel was so upset over the little graze over his ribs he didn't seem to notice the facts had been fudged a mite.
Green made a harrumphing noise. "Surprised you're still hanging around."
Tuck wasn't called on to explain further because the mayor, evidently more intrigued by the blood now running down Herschel's side, focused on the wound.
"Well?" Green prodded the deputy. "You were saying how you came by that scratch. Plenty of shooting going on for a while there, the good Lord knows. Suppose you got in the way, which would explain why you wasn't out in the street putting the kibosh on the ruckus like you should've been." Even so, he sounded a tad doubtful.
"Not quite," Mrs. Birdsall put in before Herschel could speak. "Not quite explains Mr. Herschel's whereabouts during the trouble, I mean. When I came downstairs after those hooligans finally rode off, I found the deputy--the former deputy--had deserted his post. I have since, by my husband's express directive, fired him."
Well now, Tuck thought, much astonished. Stretching the truth with Herschel was one thing, but what was a fine lady like Mrs. Birdsall doing telling her whoppers to the mayor? Her sharp blue glare warned him he'd best keep his mouth shut. He made the snap decision to do whatever she wanted.
"Is that right?" Green belonged to the school that demanded selfless adherence to the job. He eyeballed Herschel like maybe the deputy was lower than a bug and said, "So where were you when all this was going on, Herschel?"
Herschel's bloodshot eyes rolled. "Outhouse," he said, self-righteousness written all over him. "Nobody got any call to get after me--or go firing me, either. I ain't feeling too good, Mayor. Must've been something I et. Noticed the café's been using old meat. If I hadn't been sick, I'd've gone after those fellers right off."
Letter Of The Law Page 6